


The Dangers Fade

by milkdoll



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Mild Blood, Nightmares, Non-Graphic Violence, blink and you miss it relationship also, this is mainly a vent fic tbh so warning for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 19:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milkdoll/pseuds/milkdoll
Summary: Widowmaker starts to have nightmares,Amélie learns how to live with them.





	The Dangers Fade

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kinda venty drabble so don't expect much of a plot whatsoever (more of an idea for a plot tbh) 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~what do you mean I'm projecting my issues onto fictional characters~~

The nightmares started a few months before Amélie defected. At first, they weren't really anything, just colours and shapes. Blotches of cream and red, mixing and shifting around one and other. But, for someone who couldn't even remember what dreams were, this was enough to wake Widowmaker with a start. 

But as the days had passed, they'd become more vivid. Incomprehensible shapes morphing into familiar features, familiar scenes. Beige blotches becoming faces, red splotches becoming deep burgundy pools. It was a scene that was burned into the few remaining memories she had. 

Every time she'd wake she'd be sat bolt upright, a tight, heavy feeling in her chest that she didn't know how to describe. 

Around the time the nightmares became clear was when they changed to other scenes. 

Some nights it was still him... Gérard. The flash of fear on his face that lasted just a second after his shout gargled into bloody silence. It played on loop, the sheen of the blade in the moonlight lighting his expression like lightning. 

Every time it replayed she'd tried to stop herself. She'd shout and scream but every time it ended the same, she'd be covered in the same blood, the same guilt, the same sorrow. 

She'd wake up sobbing from those nightmares, for a moment before she was fully awake her skin still felt wet and sticky. Her hands shaking as though they were still heavy from holding the weight of the knife. 

Other nights, it was the familiar cold metal of the examination table. She couldn't move and her skin felt like ice, she was so cold. But the doctors didn't care, somehow, she could see their cruel snarls behind the bright white surgical masks as they worked on her. She'd bleed when they cut her and she'd scream when they wouldn't stop. 

They never listened.

On those nights she'd wake up sweating. Gasping for breath and hands grasping at air just trying to reassure herself that she could move again. Expecting to feel the tear of her skin again, or light shone in her eyes like they had done. But it never came. 

It was then she had realised she had a problem. 

-

She still had nights where she'd wake up short of breath, clutching at sheets and wide eyed in the darkness. 

But now she wasn't alone. 

Warm hands would gently squeeze the hand pushing into sheets beside her, letting her know she wasn't alone. The hands would rub up her arm to her back in soothing circles, the air came to her a little easier then. 

"Amélie? You're okay, you're with me" Angela's voice would always sound soft and quiet, still thick with tiredness but still sincerely warm. 

Doctor Ziegler had been the only person on the Overwatch team to believe Amélie's story, that she was remembering, that things were different now. She'd been the only person to listen to Amélie explain the nightmares, and had listened with a thoughtfully concerned expression. Angela, of course, had not trusted Amélie at all at the beginning. 

But months passed and Amélie hadn't changed, she hadn't been 'activated' as a sleeper like most of the head faction of Overwatch had thought. In fact, after a handful of weeks, Talon denounced Widowmaker as an enemy. From then on people around the HQ gradually started calling her Amélie again. 

The doctor had been the first on the medical team to help Amélie with the nightmares. She couldn't do much but try to teach the other some breathing and grounding techniques. But to Amélie it meant more than a few hours restless sleep in what felt like a lifetime. And in some ways, she guessed she could say it had been a lifetime.

"Merci beaucoup." Her voice was faint, faraway, as she tried to concentrate on the feeling of fabric scratching the backs of her knees. The doctors rubbed slow, flat circles on the cold skin of Amélie's back. 

She used to have nightmares every night, every time she closed her eyes she'd see a flash of light, or a splat of red. She used to wake up alone and scared, confused as she gasped like a fish out of water for a grip back on reality. 

Now she still had nightmares, but at the most a few times every month. She'd still wake up with a shock, bleary eyed and flailing. She'd still think she could feel the gloved prods and sharp slices of Talons doctors, or even hear the feeble gasp of Geralds last breath. 

But now Angela's warm touches reminded her she wasn't alone anymore. Her kind voice would bring her back down the earth from ever hell she had been in. 

It might not have been a cure, but it was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> I also kinda wanna write a chaptered fic around this one day but I don't know if I will
> 
>  ~~ps I'm writing this at 3:30am when I also haven't written anything in around 5 years so I'm so sorry omfg~~
> 
> ~ Thanks for reading!


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